


Signed A

by littlemachines



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, god i have no idea what to tag, i guess kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1747457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemachines/pseuds/littlemachines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some words take time to be said so we write them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signed A

**Author's Note:**

> ♡ HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM HERE'S SOME CUTE LESBIANS FOR YOU ♡  
> this was meant to be online an hour ago and you're probably asleep i am trash i know  
> BUT I HOPE IT'S A NICE THING TO WAKE UP TO  
> have the best day ever my friend i hope it's full of happiness and yuri (which are, essentially, the same thing)
> 
> anyway, I wasn't sure if it should be mature because mentions of sex but I went with teen+ SORRY IF I CORRUPT ANY 12 YEAR OLDS and trigger warning for mentions of abuse. i can't rate things. i can't do anything right at 1am it seems. also it hasn't been read over so if there are any typos i'm sorry i'll read over it (and cringe) and correct them some other time i promise
> 
> ANYWAY AGAIN i hope those reading enjoy it and you have a wonderful day and yey lesbians

Mikasa Ackerman was good – very good, in fact – at pretending she was asleep.

Uninterrupted breathing and the rise and fall and rise again of her chest were natural to her. Maybe it was the foster homes she’d spend so many years in that taught her this, where children, like yourself, would get out of their beds to put worms in yours, just to see you squirm, scream and cry. Mikasa learnt quickly that silence was the key to survival and the only way you could fight was to survive.

So she would press her lips together as she felt their dirt-encrusted fingernails on her skin. Their giggles didn’t even cause a flinch. She learnt to control her panic, control her breathing, and hold her tears, as if the night would evaporate them. Then the next morning, she would clean her bed, clean herself and live. _Survive_.

It was like playing with a ragdoll. They got bored. They moved onto someone else’s bed. Mikasa would hear another’s cries and do nothing, her body rigid and her breathing even. If she moved, they would come back and if they came back, she would not survive. So she continued to pretend as if they were still stood over her and it was hard not to feel trained when you pretended for so long, like a dog playing dead.

For a long time, Mikasa wished she was.

The sleeping demon was her hardest to fight. Alone, she could will her fingers to uncurl from a fist, her strong body to rest weak. She could sleep and often dream. But if another set of lungs joint her own, she was back in the body of a submissive, terrified little girl. Even after being taken into the Jaeger family, Mikasa treated sleeping like drowning. She did what she could to stay afloat.

Annie Leonhardt never asked Mikasa for her reasons and Mikasa never asked Annie for hers. In fact, when Mikasa had first met the pale blue eyes of the other girl at the gym, she thought Annie’s indifference was something close to hatred. Three mutual visits to the gym later, Mikasa found quite the opposite, as the blonde pulled Mikasa down and met their lips with surprising gentleness. They were sweat-covered and stubborn but it didn’t matter. The scent of the blonde girl soaked into Mikasa’s sheets and she didn’t wash them until the next morning, even though Annie didn’t stay the night. She didn’t even stay the evening.

Mikasa expected to never see her again. She hadn’t left a phone number and there was a standard protocol with one-night stands, wasn’t there? If Mikasa’s life was a movie, Annie would have skipped town for a journey of self-discovery and left Mikasa to try and figure out why she even cared if the girl she didn’t even know the surname of didn’t stay at all after sex. But the next day Mikasa went to the gym and found Annie at her usual punch-bag. When Annie lifted her head to look at her, just as she had when they had first laid eyes on each other, Mikasa knew that whatever journey Annie was going on, it was Mikasa’s too.

Things changed but they didn’t. Annie never stayed the night. At first, that had been what made her safe, appealing even. But it quickly got tiring and Mikasa wanted to say something until she realised she had nothing to say. _Annie, don’t go. Annie, stay. Annie, hold a body that can’t hold you back._ It would have been easier to tell the girl Mikasa had grown to deeply care about that she was sharing a bed with a grenade.

It took her a very long time to realise she was being selfish – which wasn’t always a bad thing because survival relied on selfishness. She only cared that Annie didn’t stay for her, never questioning why Annie needed to go.

Annie Leonhardt was Mikasa’s first for putting emotion above survival. She was a first for a lot of things. And when Mikasa asked her, after, if she could leave with her, wherever Annie was going, the other girl had given Mikasa a look so soft that she felt it in the pit of her chest, as opposed to the knot in her lower stomach. Annie had said no, not this time, but the kiss they shared reminded Mikasa of their first – gentle, hesitant and perhaps a little sad. Mikasa told herself that she would do anything to never taste that sadness on Annie’s lips ever again.

The next time they met, it became an afternoon, an evening, a night. Mikasa didn’t sleep but she didn’t need to try to. Annie kept her awake. Mikasa watched Annie dress the next morning, through tired eyes, and when she was done, Annie leant in to kiss her good morning.

“No more running?” Mikasa had whispered, the words slipping out like the silver threads of a wonderful dream. It never stopped.

Annie smiled, albeit small but a smile of something genuine, something loving. Mikasa couldn’t remember ever being so happy.

“No more running,” she confirmed. She touched Mikasa’s hair – the same hair her skilled fingers caught in through the night – but with careful hands, as if Mikasa was an exquisite doll. Even in her sleepy state, Mikasa held her breath as Annie dropped a gentle kiss to Mikasa’s forehead. “How about a slow jog to the door though? I have a bus to catch.”

It was the first time Annie had given her any information about where she had to be. The joke was heavy with something Mikasa didn’t realise was all she had needed – trust.

Mikasa had fallen asleep before she heard the door slam shut. She trusted Annie too and that was worth more than any demon that plagued her bones and her nights.

Of course, it was easier said than done. Annie had her demons, calling her away from Mikasa in daylight hours, and Mikasa had hers, which left her with her back to Annie as they laid in the dark. She fell back into the habit of pretending to sleep as she listened to the soft sounds of Annie’s breathing and it was horribly ironic that it was the sound she wanted to hear for every night of her life. But she wanted to join it, to nestle her body against her lover’s and call her own, to share dreams instead of watch Annie dream without her.

But all Mikasa could do was watch the demons fill the small space between her body and Annie’s, expanding it until it felt like a black hole slept between them, sucking away all the affection from Annie’s fingertips and the laughter from the crinkles around Mikasa’s eyes, until they woke in silence and left awkwardly, quietly.

The dream of a normal romance was shattering, the silver threads snapping. One, Annie left before Mikasa woke up. Two, three, four, every time Annie avoided her eyes. Five, when she didn’t come over, didn’t text or call the next day.

Yet again, Mikasa only thought of herself and it didn’t occur to her that she wasn’t the only one who dreamt. When Annie showed up at Mikasa’s door two days later in the middle of the night, her face covered in bruises and her beautiful lips split with blood, it became clear that the threads of Annie’s dreams had been dyed red.

All the anger, all the frustration Mikasa felt for the other girl’s stubbornness drained from her body as she picked up Annie’s hands and found the pale skin callused but unbroken.

Whoever did this to Annie was a demon she didn’t fight back.

“I have nowhere else to go,” Annie had said and her voice was hoarse but her eyes were sure. Desperate but sure. _I have nowhere else I want to go._

Mikasa wished she had seen sooner that Annie’s demons were not haunting but waging wars inside her. She would have kissed her but it was bad enough having to taste Annie’s sadness, she never wanted to taste her blood.

Annie didn’t cry – she barely winced – when Mikasa cleaned her wounds. She sat on the kitchen counter and Mikasa stood between her thighs but the tension between them was not sexual. When Mikasa finished and moved back to wash the cloth, Annie had caught her wrist.

With their hands laced together, Annie told her everything, about the death of her mother, the fighting and her father. Annie repeated her insults, the recounts of his knuckles on her face with a flat tone, like she was reading a dictionary. And when the detachment in Annie’s tone scared Mikasa too much, she pulled Annie into her arms.

Annie didn’t make a sound when she cried. When she breathed Mikasa’s name into the taller girl’s neck, Mikasa didn’t let go but held on tighter, carrying her to bed. When Annie began to undress, Mikasa was the one to catch her hand.

“It’s okay,” Annie said softly. Her eyes said it clearly: _I trust you_.

Mikasa didn’t reply, her own voice caught in her throat, but she nodded and, when Annie removed her blood-stained t-shirt, Mikasa flattened her ruffled hair with both her hands.

They didn’t kiss but they laid naked under the sheets, facing each other, as open as two people could be without having to say a single word. Annie watched Mikasa until sleep overcame her but Mikasa didn’t fall under so easily. It could have been her demons but Mikasa knew it was all Annie, with her beautiful face painted with pain that no one deserved. Whatever it was, it didn’t help when Mikasa awoke alone.

Until she saw a bright pink post-it note (from the pack Armin had given her to urge her to organise her inventory for the coffee shop she was currently on a break from) stuck where Annie’s head had rested only a few hour ago.

 _gone to get some stuff. didn’t want to wake you since you were up late last night_ , it said, in a fancy slanted script that mildly surprised Mikasa. It was signed with a simple _A._ No full name. No kisses. It seemed to Mikasa that Annie wouldn’t have signed it all, normally. But she was trying. Mikasa smiled and saved the post-it, storing it away in her desk drawer.

When she trudged into the kitchen, she found another post-it on the kitchen counter, next to a plate of eggs, buttered toast and a glass of orange juice. The eggs were still letting off lingering wisps of smoke, suggesting Annie had only left a while ago. Mikasa plucked up the note, unable to suppress her smile. _as a thank you -A p.s. you’re out of milk_

Annie didn’t come over that day and, although it worried her, considering the circumstances, Mikasa couldn’t stop smiling, even though Annie _really_ couldn’t cook.

*

The next day Annie showed up when Mikasa was in the middle of working through the stock deliveries she needed to chase up about. Usually, Armin handled the business aspect of the shop but he usually turned to her when the companies started upping payments. Mikasa would call herself less persuasive and more powerful. She often imagined the men on the other end couldn’t hold their bladder once she was done with them. The knock interrupted her mid-rant but she carried on smoothly as she headed to open the door. She didn’t even stop when Annie was stood in front of her, blinking at the ferocity of her tone.

“Listen, Shadis, the Jaeger family have been buying their goods from your company for decades” – Mikasa let Annie inside and shut the door a little harder than necessary before throwing herself on the couch and glaring at the stock supply she still had to check up on, all written in Armin’s scrawny print – “but I am _not_ a Jaeger and I’m certainly not frightened of change. I want our stock delivered by next week, as _promised_ , or I’ll let you Eren deal with you.”

Keith Shadis spluttered indignantly. “Don’t- don’t you threaten me, young lady! I-”

“Good day, Shadis.” Mikasa clicked the ‘end’ button, threw the phone beside her and leant back, exhaling loudly. Shadis was by far the worst one on the list but that didn’t mean the rest were any easier to handle.

She had forgotten Annie was in the apartment until she felt small hands on her shoulders and a soft, “Uptight guy?”

Mikasa opened her eyes and blinked at the blonde, like she was looking at the sun, even though the angle Annie was stood in cast shadows on Mikasa’s face. Mikasa opened her mouth to ask what she was doing until she realised that Annie’s hands were moving. _Massaging_.

Mikasa felt her flash flush so she straightened up – awkwardly because Annie didn’t let go – aware of how intimate it was, for Annie to ask questions easily (or more easily than normal) and to try to help her unwind, both body and mind. “He’s… difficult. Armin tried to get him to stop costing us for offer sales that we clearly negotiated earlier in the year because orders rarely change but he was insistent that we would get no special treatment.” She snorted, rolling her eyes. “His friendship with Eren’s dad has nothing to do with business. And what special treatment? The guy’s an asshole.”

“Carla’s Coffee Corner, right?” Annie’s hands were firmer now, teasing the stress of Mikasa’s neck muscles out with her thumbs.

“You know where I work?”

Now Annie was the one to snort. “You think I don’t make a habit of knowing what I get myself into?”

 _What have you got yourself into?_ Mikasa wanted to ask but instead, she leant her head back to give Annie a smirk. “I think that you probably have my car number plate memorised and you know my blood type which is alarming considering I don’t even know my blood type.”

“Oh, please, Ackerman.” Annie’s sarcasm was teasing, tempting. The skin where her hands pressed felt warm and her next words were at Mikasa’s throat. “That would mean I’m obsessed with you.”

Mikasa found it hard to formulate a reply when Annie’s lips were on her throat, not chaste enough to be gentle but soft enough to be teasing. She swallowed to clear her head and blurted out, “And you’re not?”

The uncertainty in Mikasa’s tone caused Annie to still. Her breath was warm on Mikasa’s neck and all she could think was: _I messed up I messed up I messed up_ -

Annie sighed, pushing away from the couch. Mikasa stiffened, preparing for the door to slam to announce Annie’s exit but instead, the blonde moved around the sofa. She picked up the discarded house phone and carefully placed it on top of the mess of papers on the coffee table before settling down beside Mikasa.

“I left,” Annie said simply.

“What?”

“I left home. My stuff is in the car.” She looked down at her hands as she spoke. “I spent yesterday looking around to see if I could find a place to crash, until I get up on my own feet. It sucks that my only job was working at Dad’s place but I’ve been saving up. Guess I always knew this would happen.”

Mikasa wanted to reach out to take her hand, to hold her face so Annie would just look at her as she spoke. Instead, she asked quietly, “Did you find a place?” not knowing what answer she feared more.

Annie nodded and Mikasa exhaled before she could stop herself. Luckily, the other girl ignored it. “Yeah. Some old friends from school and are living together. They said I could bunk for a while.”

“And a job?”

Annie almost visibly winced. “Working on it.”

Later, Mikasa would tell Eren and Armin that it was a spontaneous decision, a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. Maybe everything with Annie was always impulsive but it felt natural, like pulling your arm back from a hot surface without thinking. Never had Mikasa associated anyone else with her own survival but Annie felt like safety. She felt like home.

“Stay here.” Annie’s eyes widened with surprise, an expression rarely seen on the blonde’s face. Mikasa hurried on, before she lost her nerve. “Work at the café and stay here.”

Mikasa watched Annie swallow, as if she found it difficult to speak. Her words were slow. “You don’t- you _can’t_ mean that… can you?”

 _Stay here_ , Mikasa wanted to say, _because it doesn’t feel like a home without you._ Instead, she simply nodded.

This time, Annie was the one to surprise her. She reached out and placed one hand on the back of Mikasa’s neck, the other at her waist, lifting Mikasa’s shirt to press into warm skin, as if Annie needed to grip something for stability, for confirmation that this was happening and it was real. Their open mouths met with a desire that still hadn’t burnt out and Mikasa didn’t think it ever would.

One of Mikasa’s favourite things about kissing Annie (besides from the fact that she was very, _very_ good at it) was that it reminded her that Annie was a regular human being. Her heartbeat would stutter under Mikasa’s fingertips and she would pull away to take a breath, hair falling over her eyes and eyes glossy with desire. It was strange how you could find out the simplest of things about someone without needing to say a word, like the taste of their tongue revealing the last thing they ate.

Today, Annie tasted like oranges.

Mikasa’s hands pressed over Annie’s to pull the smaller girl on to her lap before she touched Annie’s arms, waist, shoulders, neck and held her face, as if unsure of where to touch her when she longed to touch her everywhere. Annie, always happy to be on top, sat on Mikasa’s thighs, with one of her knees pressing in between them dangerously.

It was easy – too easy – for Mikasa to forget why Annie was kissing her in the first place. When she moved back to take a breath, she stopped Annie with a hand on her left collarbone, relishing the feeling of the smaller girl’s heart thrumming against Mikasa’s palm.

“Is that a yes?” she asked breathlessly.

Annie blinked, momentarily confused before she realised what her kiss must have meant. For a few short seconds, Mikasa panicked. Why would Annie want to stay with her anyway? It wasn’t like they were girlfriends. And Annie wasn’t exactly _friendly_ …

“Then again, I can see why you wouldn’t want to,” Mikasa said quickly, to save the situation and perhaps her dignity. “You’d probably get sick of me-”

Annie swiftly interrupted the sentence with a kiss, unlike their previous ones. This one was soft. Thankful. Annie’s kisses said the things she didn’t.

“No.” Her voice was barely above a whisper but her blue eyes were steady on Mikasa’s. “No.”

Mikasa grinned, an eyebrow raised. “So it _is_ a yes?”

Annie rolled her eyes but then nodded. Her expression was almost shy. She was biting her lip, not out of uncertainty but as if she was trying not to smile. It was no use. Annie couldn’t stop the smile that met Mikasa’s own as they kissed again.

That night, there was something unmistakably different in their caresses, as if Mikasa wanted to memorise Annie with her hands and Annie wanted to memorise Mikasa with her mouth. Every touch was more than passion and electric. It was no longer about two broken girls looking for a warm bed. Maybe Annie didn’t love her but it sure felt like they were making love.

Afterwards, they laid pressed together, with Annie’s chin resting atop Mikasa’s chaotic sex hair. Annie had blown into the sticky-up strands and Mikasa had laughed quietly into her neck. When Mikasa closed her eyes, she saw no demons waiting but instead the shadow of the fireworks Annie had lit up within her.

On the edge of sleep, she felt Annie’s hand brush against her naked back, a single finger travelling up the curve of her spine almost absentmindedly. And then they began curving and twisting, too specific, too precise to be simple dance of her fingertips. Annie was forming something that Mikasa’s tired mind couldn’t comprehend, except for the last two words: _thank you_.

The next morning, Mikasa woke up with a sense of déjà vu, a similar panic at the absence on the left hand side of her bed that made her question whether whatever her and Annie had was real to Annie or even real at all.

But another post-it note was slapped on top of the pillow, easing Mikasa’s panic. _gone to see Bert + Reiner about not staying with them –A_ , it said, as straight to the point as Annie’s speech was. Mikasa still saved it, wondering if there was anyone in the world who did things like that – saving grocery lists and taking screenshots of simple text messages just to look back on them one day and remember how nice even the simple, boring things were when they were shared with someone else.

She hoped she wouldn’t look back on those things alone.

Mikasa even laughed when she saw her breakfast set out for her yet again. Her breath caught at the post-it note stuck on the glass of orange juice.

 _I guess I am obsessed with you after all_.

The eggs still tasted bad but they better.

*

Mikasa would have been lying if she said living with Annie Leonhardt was not even a tiny bit awkward. They had moved what little belongings Annie had bought with ease and Mikasa found she liked Annie’s toothbrush next to hers in the bathroom and her collection of action/thriller/horror movies on top of the dust-covered DVDs Eren had probably bought over for their monthly movie nights but forgotten to take back to his own apartment.

Annie had now met the Jaegers and Armin. Mikasa had pulled her adoptive brother and their best friend aside to apologise for offering Annie a job that had been previously non-existent but they’d reacted calmly enough (at least for Eren.) Armin had simply flicked through some sheets and concluded that they could afford to pay someone and the help would be appreciated. Eren had glanced between Annie and Mikasa with a suspicion until Armin shoved his clipboard in the taller boy’s face and told him that it was his turn to tell Mr and Mrs Jaeger how everything was going (translation: Eren had been eating all the chocolate muffins and he was probably going to get his ear pulled really hard from his mother.)

Of course, neither of Mikasa’s best friends were idiots, as much as they teased Eren of his anger burning out the few brain cells he had. Eren had immediately launched into 100 questions. Armin pushed the eager boy away as he explained how the coffee machine worked. Annie didn’t speak but followed his instructions without any fault. Armin turned to look back at Mikasa and gave her a thumbs-up and a soft smile that said he knew. What he knew, Mikasa couldn’t say.

Even Eren’s parents liked Annie – or as well as one could like a girl who barely spoke and looked at customers so coldly, it was a miracle their orders didn’t freeze up by the time she handed them over.

Mikasa worked on that with her though. They worked on a lot of things, like what days who made breakfast and when Mikasa prioritised paperwork over sex (Annie would put on a movie to distract herself.) But there was always something missing, as if it was on the tip of their tongues but neither of them had the strength to say it out loud. The sleeping demon had gone back to the hell it came from but the demon of the unsaid curled around every word they spoke, choking their throats and pressing their lips. And there was only so long when one could use their kisses as confessions.

Months went by. Mikasa didn’t even taste how bad the eggs were and knew Fight Club word-for-word. Annie still traced words on Mikasa’s back when she thought Mikasa was sleeping. Mikasa collected the post-it notes Annie wrote and prayed Annie would never open the second drawer of her desk because it glowed neon pink.

They didn’t say that they were girlfriends but it went without saying. They even went on dates. Annie’s poker face could win awards. Mikasa never knew if she liked the movie or not when they walked out. Annie even asked Armin if he and Eren were sleeping together. Mikasa found it hilarious (if not a little disturbing.) Eren, for once in his life, was stuck speechless. Annie’s existence in their lives was a positive one. You could almost forget that there were demons to be slain.

Most mornings, the two of them woke up, showered, ate breakfast and headed to the gym together. If nothing else, Mikasa would greet the blonde with chaste kisses before Annie would say, “Screw the morning breath” and they’d skip the gym to stay in bed and burn the calories.

So Mikasa was surprised when she woke up to a post-it note that was usually reserved for _we’re out of milk again, ackerman_ and _armin asked me to do an extra shift I’ll see you at 5_ messages next to her head. She yawned (they were up late last night _again_ ) as she picked it up and found the simple message: _look around_ _-A_

Mikasa did – and dropped the note she was holding.

Ideally, if Mikasa’s life was a movie, there would be pink post-it notes everywhere but, time and time again, the movie analogy was proven otherwise. Even with Armin’s impressive stationary supply, their post-it note collection was limited. Still, three additional post-it notes could be seen. One on the lamp on Mikasa’s other side, another on the mirror and one on the door.

The first one on her lamp said: _I leave before you get up because I never know what to say on a morning but I never know what to say anyway but I’m trying_.

Mikasa’s bedcovers tangled around her legs but she kicked them aside as she pulled on the nearest t-shirt before grabbing the note on the mirror. Her reflection was flushed, her eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. This note said: _you’re beautiful_.

Her legs felt unsteady as she walked towards the door. She pressed one hand against it to keep balance as the other held the last post-it in the room. _there isn’t a day I don’t get up and wonder what god I have to thank for letting me wake up next to you._

Notes still in hand, Mikasa took a deep breath and walked out of her bedroom to find more spots of pink dotted around her apartment. She laughed out loud as she picked up the one on her bathroom door - _thank you for letting me use the shower. water is pretty damn expensive_ – and the laugh shook, just like her hands, as she picked up note after note. Some were compliments and some were simple expression of gratitude and some were something in between. Often, the writing was smudged, as if Annie had wrote it hurriedly with the simple purpose of a reminder. A lot were in black pen, some in blue and the odd few were in red and green. Even the simple variations that Mikasa could pick up from seeing Annie’s script so much told her that these messages weren’t all from one time – Annie had been writing them when she couldn’t say them out loud.

There was no breakfast set out today but the fridge had a single note that made Mikasa want to cry and laugh altogether. _I know my cooking tastes like horse shit. but thank you for letting me do something for you._

Her living room was filled with six months’ worth of words.

_thank you for the job. I hope I don’t mess up. I don’t want to let you down._

_I care about you._

_thank you for giving me a chance._

_I want to care for you. I want to look after you. I want to do everything you’ve done for me._

_thank you for letting me stay here. thank you for being with me. thank you thank you thank you_

_I care about you so much but I can’t write it all. the words wouldn’t fit on this scrappy piece of paper_

Eventually, the post-it notes were spilling from Mikasa’s hands as easily as the tears from her eyes. She thought about the first time she felt truly content and honestly happy with Annie and compared it to her feelings of utter elation now. The missing piece was the words that may have been unsaid but were no longer unheard and each of them was signed with the first letter of Annie’s name.

“Do you ever want to say things, so many things, but you’ve trained yourself to be quiet for so long, you don’t think you can remember how to shout?”

Mikasa turned towards Annie, her thoughts chanting: _God yes God yes God yes_. The blonde girl looked incredibly small stood at the front door of their shared home. Her hands were shoved in the front of her hoodie pocket and her hair was pulled back hastily into a ponytail. She had never looked so beautiful.

“I love you, Mikasa Ackerman.” The delivery of the words was not perfect. Annie’s voice shook, her breath caught and the sound of those three oh-so important words should have barely travelled across the room but Mikasa heard it loud and clear.

It was only when Annie’s head turned away and she cleared her throat that Mikasa realised that she was doing nothing but gaping at the other girl with an open mouth. After all this time of waiting for Annie to speak, Mikasa was the one without words.

Annie laughed awkwardly and if heartbreak had a sound, that was it. “It’s a good thing I didn’t put it on a post-it note, huh?”

“Say it again,” Mikasa mouthed.

Annie’s hesitation would have led Mikasa to believe she hadn’t heard Mikasa’s command but Annie was looking at her again, eyes filled with an expression that she only saw in fleeting moments. _Hope_.

“I love you,” Annie said, just as quietly but it was loud enough.

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“Annie, I love you.” Nothing, no demon, could stop Mikasa. She wasn’t sure who moved first – her or Annie – but her hands dropped the post-it notes to cup Annie’s face and Annie’s arms wound around Mikasa’s waist. Annie was saying she loved her, she loved Mikasa Ackerman against Mikasa’s lips and it was the best thing Mikasa had ever tasted it.

When they separated, Annie’s smile was radiant, her eyes glowing with tears that the lion-hearted girl was too proud to shed in front of anyone but Mikasa.

Then the smile twisted to a smirk and her eyebrows raised in question, an expression Mikasa wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with. It usually ended up with them going back to bed. “Satisfied?” _If they could make it there._

Mikasa removed a hand from Annie’s cheek to press it thoughtfully against her own. “Hm.” She mocked contemplation. “It could have been better.”

“You think?” Annie’s voice lowered to a purr.

Shrugging, Mikasa said simply, “Practice makes perfect.”

Something in her words caused Annie to move back slightly to dig into her hoodie pocket and pull out the remaining few post-it notes and a pen. She lifted the note to write at an angle Mikasa couldn’t sneak a look but Mikasa was distracted anyway. When Annie wrote, she concentrated whole heartedly on the task and her tongue even peeked out. Mikasa had never seen anything more adorable.

Abruptly, Annie pulled the top note from its pack and stuck it firmly on Mikasa’s chest.

Mikasa picked it off her chest and read it out. “‘You’re perfect.’” It was the first note Annie hadn’t bothered to sign.

Mikasa watched with mild amusement as Annie stuffed the post-it notes and pen back in her pocket and crossed her arms over her chest. Annie’s face was wonderfully pink.

“I know,” Mikasa said softly, not taking her eyes off the shorter girl. Annie responded by turning her head away stubbornly, blushing harder. Mikasa only smiled harder.

*

Mikasa kept each of Annie’s post-it notes from that day but, as Annie said them, she binned each one until her desk drawer was empty but her heart was full.


End file.
